The Great War: A Photographic Narrative

When World War Ióthe Great Warówas brewing a century ago, photography had become a part of everyday life; even though most of the world's military leaders were slow to appreciate its value as a propaganda tool, soldiers carried their own cameras into the conflict. This stunning album surveys the global reach of the war through 380 remarkable black and white photosóTsar Nicholas II on horseback, inspecting his troops in 1914; German Zeppelins on their way to bomb England in 1915; the blasted landscape of the Somme in 1916; Americans marching through Piccadilly in 1917; T.E. Lawrence resigning from the Arab Army in 1918; and the German navy scuttling its ships at Scapa Flow after the armistice. In between are such stunning images as an aerial photo of a gas attack; British troops under shrapnel fire on an open road, snapped just as a man has been hit; precious religious items being removed from bombed-out churches; a dead German soldier whose uniformed corpse and fleshless skull form a perfect icon of death; and literal mountains of empty shell cases following bombardments in France.